As I have written in a previous Article on my blog, I have been exploring ways to limit or curtail how much I interact with social media. For many years I have focused primarily on writing for this blog and posting links to them on Facebook and Twitter. This has pretty much remained my way of engagement. Its been a simple way to communicate to old friends and acquaintances, who I rarely see to speak to, about what is currently going on in my world. Also, its been a practice, a way to hone and improve how I write about my experience, the things I read, see, hear and appreciate. That is what Cornucopia as a blog site has been for.
How to get the best and avoid the worst of social media is an ongoing learning skill. As the various social media channels have proliferated, there has been just too many to realistically engage with them all. Unless, of course, I wished to spend my every living waking moment staring at a plasma screen mediating each minute fluctuation of emotional experience in time. Which I do not.
Over the last year it's become clearer how much social media is increasingly manipulated for personal gain and political influence, and by turn its manipulating us, perverting and undermining democracy for its own ends. I deleted Twitter last year. I have only posted my blogs on Blue Sky and Facebook since then.. But The Tangerine Emperor's inauguration and all the Tech Oligarchs lined up in an obedient row, plus Zuckerberg's abandoning of fact checking, means my continued use of Facebook now feels on borrowed time.
As with most things it's about about finding the level of engagement I'm comfortable with - between complete removal and never being off it. I generally take time to assess whether I really want to take a particular course of action, whether that is appropriate, whether I will be closing off a still useful channel of communication, boycotting Facebook simply to make some stand that no one knows nor cares about, except for me. I do feel the current zeitgeist demands something more than deploring the current state of affairs.
It would be much simpler to cut off social media altogether. I'm always a bit reluctant to take the absolute puritan path, however deceptively clear ethically that might initially appear. Besides there would be a loss for me. I find writing for my blog quite satisfying and the loss of its direction and purpose, would I sense be quite significant to me. Today, I'm sensing this issue may eventually prompt a wider review, a rethink of my whole approach and raison d'etre for writing a blog in the first place.
Practically my blogs reading audience, for what it is, is small and scattered widely across the world. It varies widely between 2,500 to 8,500 views a month, my best ever month was 24,000 views when something weird starting happening in Singapore, to then be followed by Hong Kong. Without social media's ability to connect, this number of views would inevitably dwindle. Though I do try to keep my ego stroking in check, it is satisfying to feel I am writing to connect to an audience, however minuscule, not just posting into an amorphous cloud and hoping for the best. I am as yet not fully settled upon a particular course of action with regard to Facebook. But this is only a matter of time for consideration.
You could however help me in bypassing Facebook by doing one of the following:~
By becoming a follower of my blog, directly through the Cornucopia blog.
https://vidyavajra.blogspot.com/
The Follow button is in the side column near the bottom, just above the Counter.
You'll then be notified whenever there's a new post on my blog.
Or simply follow me on Blue Sky, if you are already on there.
I will continue posting links to this blog on Facebook and Blue Sky until I settle on a course of action.
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